Hex went to the flea market to see what he could buy. He only had a ten in his pocket, but he just wanted to get out of the house and away from the bad memories. He walked around the stalls selling all kinds of things, and spotted fake Animonite card boxes. They were fake because they were too cheap and had Animonite that weren’t even out yet in sets.

He left the cards where they were, even though the nice man behind the counter talked with him about Animonite for a bit. He went over to the stall next to it, which looked like a bunch of junk a hoarder was trying to sell off. He noticed the animal furs, which made him grit his teeth a little. He decided not to bother the person behind the counter about it, even though it made him angry. He was working on trying not to be preachy to everyone he met.

He skimmed over the straw baskets and other knick knacks, and came across a normal looking wooden jewelry box that had strange purple markings on it. He picked it up and opened it, it was empty. He decided that he should at least come back with something.

“Hey, how much for this?” He raised the jewelry box and pointed to it.

“Five bucks, take it or leave it.” The aging lady behind the counter pointed to it as well.

“Alright, deal.” He went into his pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill and handed it to the lady.

“Have a good day.” The lady smiled.

“Bye.” He waved and left, he was still pissed about the animal furs but didn’t want to say anything, so he became passive aggressive about it.

He went home and locked the door behind himself.

“What’s that you got there?” Owen smiled and looked at the box.

“Some weird jewelry box thing, maybe I’ll put some pins in it or something, I dunno.” He shrugged, he didn’t think that far ahead.

“Oh, that’s a real cute jewelry box.” Din walked in as she tore open an empty cardboard box.

“I dunno about cute, it’s interesting though, never seen any markings like the one on this thing before.” He raised it up to his face and looked at it.

“Sorry, purple is my second favorite color,” Din said.

“Well if it’s your second favorite, you won’t mind me keeping it for myself then.” He put it behind his back and walked to the door to his room.

“Oh yeah, you going to do anything in the studio today?” Owen asked.

“Maybe, I was thinking about taking the day off today, I need a break. I already recorded the vocals, I just need to finish the rest of it.” He sighed. He really didn’t want to make music at the moment, he was pushing himself to make a sad song about the breakup, but it was too hard. He started to cry again in the studio when he was recording the vocals, but he had done that before. It was therapeutic to him, but it was so hard listening to the vocals over and over again to make sure that the song was good enough.

“Alright, you do sometimes need a break, you do most of the work anyways. I’m just the drummer.” Owen nodded.

“I’ll be in my room if you need me.” He opened the door and went through.

“I’ll call for you when dinner’s ready,” Owen shouted after him.

Hex went onto his computer, and checked his email to see if Owen had sent him any news that day. Owen always sent him curated news because news media would constantly make him angry, so unless it was really important, he told Owen to not send him anything political. The entirety of it was just cute dog videos. He huffed, Owen had been curating his news weirdly the past few days, he was going to have to tell him to chill on the dog videos.

He checked his band’s social media group, and he smiled as he found a post where one of his fans, who was also a ten dollar patron on his band’s crowdfunding page, had bought another shirt. That made three for her, he was keeping count. He remembered that the fan wanted him to remaster a really old Acid Overdose song, and wondered why. All that song was was him, Owen, and another one of his old friends making funny voices while rattling off The Curse lyrics.

He continued to surf the internet until he was called into the kitchen for dinner. He was surprised that Owen was making vegan meals for him, even though he said that he thought it wouldn’t last long. He still felt bad about the WhamDonalds burger he had, and decided to say nothing but thank you to him as he picked up his food. It was teriyaki tofu on rice that night. He ate in front of the computer, while watching another episode of Neon Alien, which he had made a song about before.

He got up from his computer desk after binge watching the first season, it was late at night, he decided to grab the jewelry box and take another look at the markings. He sat on the couch in the living room, tiredly fiddling with the lid of the box, flipping it open and closed. He decided to get a drink, and there was a warm tea left out for him, Owen sometimes did leave out drinks for him.

He took a sip, then went back and continued to fiddle with the box. He looked to the clock, it was a minute to midnight. He shrugged, he always seemed to stay up late, so he didn’t give it much thought. He looked at the strange markings as he played with it, and wondered what language it was. He decided that in the morning he would try to translate whatever was on the box with his phone.

He flipped open the box again, and a purple mist came out of it. He gasped, and opened the box all the way to see inside. There was the purple mist inside and nothing else. A blue humanoid polygonal figure with solid red eyes came out of the mist.

“I have never seen a Zoranian with skin, eyes and hair such as yours and your friends, but it seems that you have met the requirements of the sun cycles you need to come of age. May the queen guide your path,” it spoke with no mouth. It raised it’s sharp three fingered hand and disappeared back into the purple mist.

He felt strange, and went to scratch his back. There was something in the way, something soft, with a feathery texture. He grabbed it and felt nerves where there weren’t any nerves before. He turned to look, and a feathery black wing was sprouting from his back.

He found that he had sharp claws on the ends of his fingers as well, which perplexed him. That wasn’t something that happened every day, he thought. He chocked it up to Owen putting acid in his drink, which happened before, even though it seemed more real to him than usual. He took the sign of strange things happening as a hint to go to sleep. He continued on with his nightly routine as if nothing had happened, and decided to sleep the acid off. He went to bed, and even though the fact that he had wings made it hard for him to find a good position to sleep in, he found one eventually and drifted off to sleep.